


The Soft Romance of Growing Old

by jujubiest



Series: SPN Finale Fix-Its [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aging, Ficlet, Fix-It of Sorts, Fuck the Canon, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:35:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28170270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: No one romanticizes growing old. Not the way they romanticize being young.A brief look at Dean's perspective on becoming an old man with Cas by his side.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: SPN Finale Fix-Its [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2051256
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	The Soft Romance of Growing Old

**Author's Note:**

> I'm feeling a lot of emotions about Dean Winchester today. This is unbeta'd, I just wrote it because I was having arthritis pain and thinking about how Dean will never get old in canon, and what a goddamn tragedy that is. Which surprised me for a second, because I usually don't think of getting old in terms of something to look forward to personally. Me following my own stream-of-consciousness resulted in this. Not strictly a post-finale fix-it but also it kind of is, because the worst part of the finale for me is Dean never getting to live a life.

No one romanticizes growing old. Not the way they romanticize being young.

Youth is all soft-focus cameras on faces that don't yet need them, desaturated color pallets and music for every moment, every scene. Youth is stargazing on the roof of your car, the only home you've ever known, feeling lonely and free in a way that almost makes all the fights and scars and bruises worth it. Youth is falling asleep at four in the morning, alcohol and adrenaline buzzing through your veins. Youth is waking four hours later ready to take on the world. Youth is the lightning in your spine when you kiss someone you'll never see again, smooth skin and bright eyes and the kind of carefree shit-eating grin you only get from being twenty-six and not knowing yet what life has in store for you.

Aging is harsher, more precise. The colors change and the cameras sharpen and the lines on your face are picked out in excruciating detail, every one. Lines around the mouth for sorrow, lines around the eyes for laughter. Muscles and joints that ache where long-ago bruises used to be, faded scars almost as numerous as the freckles that used to dust your cheeks.

Your eyes are faded green and surrounded by a starburst of lines, every joke you've ever been in on etched deep into your skin, a story. Age is moving a little slower on the days that it rains. It's kissing the same person every day for years, curled up under blankets, a warm hand rubbing that spot on your back that always aches. Age is soft smiles shared over coffee and across tables and out of the corners of eyes when you're driving, your rough old hands clasped between you on the seat and an old mixtape playing your favorite song. Age is being home and in bed by ten, ready to turn out the lights and curl into the body of the person that stayed, and stayed, and stayed, until you finally stopped holding your breath for the moment they'd leave. Age is waking up late the next morning to find blue eyes already open, watching you with a tenderness that makes you ache with gratitude for every year between you and the days when you were twenty-six.

No one romanticizes growing old. But maybe they should.


End file.
